Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The warm temperatures are the primary red flag today. Seems the snow really heated up over the last few days.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Wet snow remains the primary concern with more days of warm temperatures and poor refreezes throughout the week. Almost every south-facing slide path in Little Cottonwood Canyon seems to have already avalanched, some with the dust layer present on the bed surface. It will be interesting in the coming days to see if the dust layer plays a part in our wet cycle. Otherwise, pretty straightforward. We didn't see much evidence of roller balls or pinwheels today, but we also actively tried to avoid southerly facing terrain until our exit.</p> <p>The wind-drifted snow seems to be less of an issue today. We didn't see any signs of cracking or collapsing, only a textured snow surface. I would guess these warm temperatures might weld things into place. The uppermost elevation wind zones and extreme terrain could still be suspect.</p>
Almost all aspects, other than true north and northeast, held some sort of thin melt-freeze crust (almost like a verglass) or just damp snow surface. As Drew said yesterday, 'Supportable faux corn may be found on some solar aspects.' I found something similar on the exits today. The high north had rather chalky, cold snow with obvious wind texture, which made for some fun turns. Surprisingly enough, I did find some surface hoar in the shaded, more protected north, northeast, and northwest-facing terrain.
Damp snow surface on westerly facing terrain
Small melt freeze crust on the surface
Wind textured snow on northely/northwesterly
Surface Hoar